CHAPTER 122: | AWAKENED FLAMES

  ---

  BOOM!

  The sound of an earth-shattering explosion could be heard from a mile-long distance.

  Its sound was extremely loud, to the point that it could shatter the eardrums of those who were extremely close to the two figures staring at each other in a complete standstill.

  "I say that this amount of force you've struggled to unleash is quite good! Still, with just this resolve of yours, killing me is utterly impossible... more so injuring me, who's hailed as the first battlemaiden of the cereum race!"

  With her words finished, Cecilia stared me in the eye, then clenched her fist as she smirked.

  "Try to defend this..."

  I could see it.

  Not with my fleshy vision, since my fleshy construct had fallen I'll to death, but with the vision that could only be achieved with an impressive control over one's mana.

  It is called the spiritual vision, an all-powerful eye that allows one to see the world that their inferior fleshy pupils wouldn't be able to observe.

  I saw it, the faintest strands of her mana moving inside of her veins, then into her palm, as they accumulated and stored in her fist to unleash a single punch that was capable of obliterating my sandy form.

  In this state, I could feel it, see it, and observe her intent building in her fist, then into the empty currents as they pierced into my abdomen and into my core, shattering it in one fell swoop.

  This vision was something akin to future sight, but I didn't mistake it for that.

  What I was reading wasn't the future, but how her intent would move in this slowed world.

  I smiled at this information, then moved my core faster than light itself.

  In an instant, my core was relocated from my abdomen into my head.

  And I saw it, the threads of intent that were piercing my abdomen and into my core changed, veering towards my head and into my core.

  I frowned at this revelation.

  I glanced at the rubbles of the buildings that once stood as homes for a family or establishments built with the dream of making it rich, now fallen into ruin.

  I smirked, then spread my mana all over the place to latch onto and grab the rubbles towards me, to reinforce my head and shield against her inevitable attack.

  But as my plan was being woven into reality, the world went into silence.

  I saw her eyes meeting mine, then she smirked with utmost confidence as thousands of units of her mana exploded from every opening in her body.

  I watched her fist weakening, then smiled as I watched her mana along with her intent spreading all over the ground like the ink of a great kraken, enveloping its surroundings in mere seconds.

  Her mana and her intents had only a single purpose, to intercept my plan, destroy my last straw of survival, and let me feel the despair of my plan crumbling before my eyes.

  It was a cruel maneuver for others, but for her, it was something necessary.

  A necessary way to teach these dirty men a lesson that the plans they came up with in the last seconds were useless against her.

  And I couldn't agree more with her thoughts.

  I could tell it and feel it from her gaze that she was smiling with bemusement at my struggle.

  But it was a pity, since I had already anticipated this move with my plan.

  The plan that I had executed wasn't to help me defend against her attack, it was to grab her attention with this coy and weaken her attack.

  This means that she had been finessed with my impeccable mind.

  I cackled in silence as I watched her eyes smiling with victory.

  Oh, how foolish.

  But I let you enjoy this moment, Cecilia, since I had already achieved my goal.

  I smirked, then reformed my body in the few milliseconds I'd bought from this ingenious plan of mine.

  I smiled and watched her eyes, brimming with confidence, turn to disbelief, then to urgency as she saw her opponent shift his entire body into a highly compressed ball.

  She clenched her teeth in disbelief.

  She knew that she had fallen into his ruse willingly.

  She sighed, since she knew it was her confidence that led her to this situation.

  She once more took her stance, then gathered her last bits of intent and mana into her fist and unleashed it in a streak of light.

  BOOM!

  The sound of an earth-shattering explosion had once again graced everyone's ears.

  Then it was followed by the sounds of laughter, as a spherical orb could be seen lying on the ground while sand crawled all around it.

  "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU ARE TOO YOUNG! TOO YOUNG TO OUTSMART ME, CECILIA!!!"

  Her expression, hidden beneath her thick armor, dampened at the words her opponent had shouted.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Cecilia sighed, since she instinctively knew that her chance to end this guy in that one single moment was completely gone.

  Now she didn't know when she would be able to land a finishing blow on this man again.

  She sighed yet again in regret at how foolish her decision was.

  Now she knew it, this stinky man seemed to be smarter than the rest.

  She grinned, then pointed her index finger, covered with a thick, cloudy gauntlet.

  "You! You're smarter than you look! I would love it if you were not some sandy golem, but such a pity that fate cannot allow us to share the union of the sacred vows."

  'Haaa? This little girl, still wet in her rear, thinks that she's someone worthy of this one?'

  I couldn't help but roll my sandy eyes at the mention of 'sacred vows,' since it could only mean one thing, and that was marriage.

  And she, who was still wet behind her rear, was dreaming about us swearing in holy matrimony when I haven't held one for Samantha?

  I was amazed at her audacity, then glanced at Samantha, who glared at me with knives.

  Lumicor merely spared me a glance, then continued in his quest for strength.

  Solia looked in the opposite direction, thinking that's where I was fighting, while Ishtar was pulling her sleeves in an attempt to correct her.

  I sighed at this odd group of weirdos.

  "Hey Tellus... isn't it amusing to see the once intellectual Solia have difficulties just like this? When she's as dumb as you are?"

  I watched Tellus's reactions through his intent.

  Though he didn't respond to me out of spite from what I did earlier, I still find it funny that he was amused in this situation right now.

  But now wasn't the time to be brazenly thinking about others when this indomitable woman is still kicking right in front of me.

  In a literal way.

  "Hey! Stop with your dillydallying and focus your attention on me, you stinking man!"

  I smirked at her words, then lifted my foot and struck her chin with a hundred thousand tons of force.

  I couldn't help but notice her armor.

  It was truly intriguing, the more I struck it, the more it vibrated and dispersed nearly all of its impact without even taking a single dent.

  While a force of a few hundred thousand tons wasn't that much, it was still impressive that there was a craftsman that could create such an intricate armor.

  But it was weird.

  The more I observed the structures of her armor, the more weird it became.

  It was like the carapace of a crustacean, but... something that wasn't, since it felt like it was a separate entity.

  I turned my head a few inches to the east, then struck my palm, followed with my feet striking her groin in an axe-like strike.

  Then I placed my palm on her abdomen as I softly muttered.

  "Torrent of Extinction."

  The world momentarily came to a halt.

  Cecilia sensed that something dangerous would happen if she remained standing in a foolish attempt to take his attack, but it was too late for her to distance herself away from me. Hell itself had already begun.

  At first, it was a small ember hovering in the palm that I placed on her abdomen.

  Then, in the next milliseconds, it multiplied into two, then into ten, continuing into a hundred, to a thousand, then into a hundred thousand, before the numbers of the embers halted when it multiplied into a million.

  Now it was a literal sun placed against her abdomen.

  She gulped in fear as her gaze drifted from me, then to her carapace melting into liquid.

  "T... t-this.... t-this is impossible... h-how... how could you melt my cereum armor, that is tougher than any metal in the world?!"

  I smirked, then watched her expression slowly turn from anger to fear the more I pressed my palm harder in her stomach.

  I was slowly running out of mana just to maintain this spell that surpassed its original output by a few hundred times.

  I saw it, my sandy hand melting into dust, ironically, along with my entire body.

  My mana was running low. It was slowly descending from 'six thousand' to five thousand with each passing millisecond.

  It was a loss compared to how much I pulled from the atmosphere in each passing moment, which was only a few thousands...

  'Umm... did I dramatize my situation too much by sounding too urgent? It can't be, right? Right?!'

  I scratched my head, then coughed loudly in my mind.

  'Ahem! Forget that and let's continue to the present... yes! To the present. Hahahaha.....'

  I was amused that Cecilia was still finding hope in me running out of mana.

  She watched my arm turn into glass along with my body with an expectant gaze.

  She was hoping that I would turn into solids before I could completely obliterate her stomach.

  I smiled at her foolish hope as I pressed forward... but then I stopped.

  I watched her expectant face become more eager.

  It was as if she was waiting for me to push my palm deeper into her stomach.

  I sighed, then put more mana into my imaginary pupils as I stared harder at her form.

  My smile faded as I saw something disturbing inside her stomach.

  It was an enigmatic creature that looked like a worm, and I could feel it by instinct, it was something capable of devouring the miniature sun in my palm.

  I sighed in disbelief.

  This girl was literally the closest to fooling me in my life.

  It was funny that I had become this careless because I tasted some victory from Lumicor.

  I guess it's time to fix this rotten personality of mine and be more serious in this fight.

  Now was the time to end this fight that had dragged on for too long.

  I closed my eyes, then cooled my head down.

  It was now the time for the finale.

  The time for the first skill to be one of the Zen series to emerge.

  It was now the time for the 'Torrent of Extinction' to awaken to its true form.

  I inhaled, then exhaled slowly, as I began to immerse myself in the concept of the 'Torrent of Extinction.'

  My mind went into full overdrive, and the concept of time itself paused in my own perspective.

  I saw it, the concept for endless destruction. The concept for extinction.

  The very extinction of matter Itself.

  I smiled, then shaped this very concept into something new, something far more concentrated.

  Like the strike of a greatsword, devastating everything in its path in a single slash.

  I reached my crystallized hand into the ground, then whispered words that are unknown to everything.

  As the earth below me heeded my words, the earth slowly crawled into the empty currents, forming into a massive greatsword that was twice as massive as me.

  Then I materialized the circuits of the greatsword with my attention.

  It wasn't merely three-dimensional circuits, but something four-dimensional.

  It was five-dimensional circuits engraved in its form, with the formation in it becoming as complex as the great structure of the Tower of Babel or the roots of the World Tree that spread into thousands of worlds.

  I swung it gently.

  Flames lit up and burned the sword in absolute darkness in its baptism, to recognize it worthy for it to reside.

  I smiled, then chanted for the second time with words that are unknown to all, words that wouldn't be interpreted by anyone.

  An ember of flames flickered into life.

  It was a single one at first.

  Then it became twice, then into a thousand, that then turned into a million, then into five million, as I couldn't pull more mana than this.

  But I pushed harder, since this would determine the quality of its awakening.

  I clenched my teeth, then I shouted my last chants as the sword exploded, covering the world in orange as a heatwave hotter than what the core of a normal sun could ever reach shot out in every direction.

  I smiled in satisfaction, even when my body had turned into glass, as a notification greeted me.

  ---

  [The dimensional record is in awe of your ingenuity. Your ability to awaken your skill on your own is beyond any praise that it could mutter, so the dimensional record laid its verdict in the recognition of a true awoken.]

  [Your skill had successfully awakened.]

  ? Torrent of Extinction -> AWAKENED FLAMES OF EXTINCTION [Active | 1,500 - Mana | Ascension II | Quality: Emperor]

  ---

  ? AWAKENED FLAMES OF EXTINCTION

  [Active | 1,500 Mana | Ascension II | Quality: Emperor]

  From the dying embers of impurity was born a new conflagration, it was purer, vaster, and unrestrained. The once unstable flames of the Torrent of Extinction have ascended beyond chaos, becoming the Awakened Flames of Extinction, a sanctified inferno that devours creation itself.

  From one ember rises another, and from that ember, a billion more. So long as mana flows, Alister’s wrath shall never wane. His fire knows no mercy, for even worlds may crumble to cinders beneath the sovereign blaze of his rage.

  ---

  [In achieving a feat that is deemed as impossible by the ordinary, you had achieved a title fit of your stature.]

  ? AWOKEN

  ---

  I smiled at the notification that greeted my eyes in gratification, but I shook my head with fatigue as I forcefully swung the sword in my hand and muttered coldly.

  "THE SECOND ZEN OF DISTORTION: FALLEN AUTHORITY: AWAKENED SWORD OF THE FALLEN."

  CRACK!